


Ignorance is Bliss

by orphan_account



Category: Ghost - Mystery Skulls (Music Video), Mystery Skulls (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 15:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2737337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Forgetting is surprisingly easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ignorance is Bliss

"How did he die?" Vivi asks, her eyes staring unknowingly at the grave. She mouthed the name, "Lewis" but didn't seem to recognize it, her eyes taking in the granite gravestone, the fresh flowers on the grave no doubt from the dead's family.

"I murdered him." Arthur said softly, too softly as Mystery barked, his red eyes glaring holes into Arthur. Arthur didn't care for tears had started to well up and he thought of how selfish he was. Vivi was the one that was supposed to need comforting but Vivi didn't remember and somehow that made it worse.

He had half dreaded and half hoped that Vivi would remember. That the gravestone would trigger something. He had hoped he wouldn't be alone in remembering an old friend.

Mystery pushes at her hand and deposits the single purple rose from his maw. After a while they both leave Arthur to mourn. He doesn't stay for long, it doesn't feel right to mourn without Mystery or Vivi at his side even though she would know who she'd be mourning for. He leaves the little toy alpaca next to the basket near the side, a gift no doubt left from Lewis' grandmother. He wipes his tears and croaks out a last, "Sorry" before going back to the Mystery Van.

.

When Vivi walks in with Mystery at her side her lashes are wet and her eyes are red. He expects her to scream at him, to slap him across the face, to ask why he murdered their best friend.

Instead she hugs him. She hugs him and cries about the state of his left arm meanwhile Mystery looks pitifully at the both of them.

"She doesn't remember." The dog whispers when Vivi is out of earshot, too busy fussing over little things such as flowers in a vase and horrible hospital food. "She doesn't remember Lewis."

"How?" Arthur asks, staring at the girl who should be downtrodden about the death of her boyfriend, not the man who murdered him. She keeps looking back at him from the corner of her watery eyes, staring at the missing space at his left side.

"I don't know but I think it's something spiritual." Mystery says, he turns his weary eyes at Arthur who sits at the hospital bed, his whole chest wrapped in bandages. "How are you doing?"

"Lewis…?

"They have his body and they're sending it home. The spirit is gone now but you didn't answer. How are you doing Arthur?"

Vivi steps up, obviously having heard but not commenting on anything about Lewis. Their second investigator, their dearest friend, her boyfriend of seven months and waits for his answer. He shrugs and it's all wrong. He flops on the bed and it's all wrong. Wrong like Vivi not knowing who Lewis is.

"Fine." Arthur says for Vivi's sake even though he knows she knows he's lying.

.

He has nightmares that have him up screaming. He has nightmares that trap him in the world of dreaming, curled tight into a ball that leave bruises in his skin from where his nails dig into pale flesh. He has nightmares that have him tossing and turning. He has nightmares and no one to talk to.

Vivi wouldn't,  _can't_ , understand even though in the mornings she gently tells him she would love to listen. Mystery still walks like Arthur is about to murder them all, like the spirit is still inside him. He guards Vivi at night and at day, a vigilant dog to Vivi's unsuspecting trust. Sometimes he thinks it's still inside him too.

.

When he hears about the funeral he wants to go back home. Pay his respects. At the same time he wants to stay as far away as he can because how will he face Lewis' family who has sheltered him and called him his own. How can he go to the funeral and sit there while others cry, their loved one's murderer sitting scotch free? How can he ever show his face in that town again?

It's not like Vivi will know the reason he wants to go back home anyway. Not when they're thousands of miles from home, as far away as he could've drove them. Vivi who still doesn't know who Lewis is. Vivi who doesn't remember green caves or bitten arms. Vivi whose started smiling and making jokes with him even though he's a murderer. A murderer who sometimes forgets his sins.

Forget he's not supposed to be smiling.

It's Mystery who convinces him that they need to go back. Mystery who says, "If you don't want to pay your respects, that's fine. I want to." Mystery who makes him feel guilt because how selfish can Arthur be?

They don't go to the funeral service but instead wait a little while. On the way to the cemetery they pass by Pepper Paradiso, the parking lot empty and the sign saying "closed" in the midst of rush hour. Mystery points it out to her, a flicker of something in the dog's eyes. Something like hope.

She's never heard of the place and asks if it's new.

Arthur almost gets them in a car wreck with how suddenly he hits the breaks.

"Arthur is there something wrong?" Vivi asks, her tone innocent and worried. Mystery next to him looks over and shakes his head slowly.

"No." Arthur says even though there's something in his throat that's hard to swallow. "Nothing at all." He's desperately glad when the spicy family food restaurant is out of sight. Desperately glad and horribly guilty.

.

Vivi doesn't remember the accident that tore off Arthur's arm and Arthur and Mystery are vague about it. She feels like she should remember something, or more like she's missing something. Maybe it's the same thing. She doesn't know. All she knows is that Arthur is sad about something and it isn't the missing arm.

He adjusts quite well to the prosthetic but then he'd still wake up screaming something. Mystery never lets her exit her room when Arthur screams even though she's threatened the dog in every way she knew would usually work if this was  _before_. But this is a unforeseeably  _after_  and so the dog blocks the doorway with growls and "go back to sleep Vivi"'s until the screams die down into uncomfortable sobs still audible through cheap hotel room doors.

She wonders if it had something to do with the arm incident. If Mystery saw something that made him paranoid. They still won't explain even when she asks. Arthur still doesn't tell her of his dreams even though she says she will listen. He's been getting better slowly as time has passed but still he does not tell her.

"Who exactly is Lewis?" She asks one day out of the blue. Even though she's been hearing him scream for ages she hasn't had a clue what he's been shouting about until he finally relented in sleeping in the van. He had scared her as she drove with his sudden bout, almost making them swerve into the wrong lane. It took a few minutes to wake him up and he looked so sad.

Like he is now, staring at her with pitying eyes.

"It was your friend right?" The friend that died sometime before Arthur's incident or maybe during - she doesn't really know. The friend that died with flowers colored purple littering their grave and the description, " _Loved Son. Brother. Friend."_. The friend who apparently liked alpacas and whom Mystery brought a single purple rose for.

"Did he-" Vivi asks, "Was he with you during your-" She gestures with her chin at his robotic arm, the robotic arm that he's taken to covering with long sleeves and gloves.

Arthur shudders, his adam apple bobbing in his throat. He swallows and nods jerkily, "Yeah, he was there."

_And he didn't survive._

Vivi nods absently feeling like she's starting to understand. "Stop beating yourself up Arthur. There was probably nothing you could do about it. It wasn't your fault."

Arthur laughs but it's a broken sound offbeat to the pop song quietly playing on the radio. He looks like he's about to cry, his lips twisted down and his eyes shiny. He whispers, "If only you remembered."

Vivi does not ask what he means by that, a slow sense of something unfurling in her mind only to be clamped shut again. Arthur does not say anything more. Mystery who was asleep just peeks up at them then settles back down again, burrowing his head into the pillows they keep in the back.

.

When Vivi's parents call her they are frantic asking about a Lewis. About her health and what happened to Mystery and Arthur. She cries to them, telling them about Arthur's arm. They demand she come back home. To safety.

Mystery hangs up the phone before she could ask what they know about the subject and who is Lewis. She thanks him and berates him in the same breath and then afterwards asks about Arthur's condition, her eyes puffy and her lips trembling.

"Is he alright?" She asks.

"He'll be fine." The demon dog reassures, "But are  _you_ alright?"

"Of course I am, I'm not the one who's bleeding out of their shoulder socket!"

"How do you feel about Lewis?" Mystery asks gently, his paw comforting on her thigh.

"Whose Lewis?"

.

She dreams. She knows she does but lately she never seems to remember them. She remembers feelings though, the remnants of  _longing_ and  _horror_  and  _grief_  following her into the waking world before she shakes it off as nothing. Because Arthur and Mystery are here and her parents are alive and well if not extremely careful in their words. And that's all the people she ever cared about really.

She explained the dreams to Mystery once. He looked like he wanted to say something. In the end all he did was pad next to her on the bed and licked her face, murmuring something about illusions and perceptions.

.

Arthur adjusts and sometimes he's happy and things are like before and sometimes he turns in the back seat of the van, murmuring words incoherently. He no longer screams but sometime he wakes suddenly, his forehead sweating and his arm reaching out in a pulling motion. He's always more disoriented when he wakes suddenly, his eyes far away. She wonders if Lewis' death had something to do with falling. She asks once, on a cold rainy day where they've driven in the rain for three hours and the ghosts have seemed more inclined to hide themselves lately.

Arthur turns stock still, his eyes distant in the passenger side. Mystery growls slightly but doesn't explain. Neither does Arthur. For the next few weeks Arthur's back to long-sleeved shirts and walking around as if a ghost was about to grab him and eat him. She never asks anything about Arthur's friend again after that. It wasn't really her place to ask anyways.

.

Arthur's been smiling lately and she's glad. Mystery has been more relaxed as well and it's all culminating into finally feeling like  _before._  They're still traveling on the road, taking a few cases for money. It's a little suspicious, she would've never pegged Arthur to be the one to insist they could make a job out of being paranormal investigators but he takes to cases with gusto. Well not really gusto but gusto by Arthur's standards.

Mystery says trauma can change a person. Vivi supposes as long as Arthur doesn't start becoming digging himself in too deep it's fine.

There are still times when Arthur frowns, talking to his uncle Lance over the phone seems to drag him down these days. She doesn't mean to eavesdrop but a van isn't the best place to take a call.

"I'm fine." Arthur would say, his expression darkening as he tries to stay quiet.

"-there's nothing wrong-" He would say, his hand digging into his hair, messing up the golden locks that he worked so hard to gel up in the morning.

"-we're not coming back.  _I can't come back_." His voice would sound desperate, his eyes haunted. He'd be loud, frustrated before looking at Vivi driving with worried eyes, then his voice would become quiet again. She hates when he does that. Looking at her with pinched brows then looking away. He's been doing that lately, as if she was the one hurting and she just didn't know it.

"Take care of Galahad for me okay." Arthur would say before hanging up abruptly, his uncle cut off mid sentence on the other line. He'd try to smile at Vivi but his lips would form more of a grimace. Mystery would shake his head in the back.

And Vivi's not an idiot. She knows what's going on. Arthur feels guilty for not saving his friend. He feels like he can't show his face near their home again. He's running away. Vivi's not an idiot but when she thinks about it during the late nights she knows she's missing something.

Something important.

.

When Vivi finds Arthur working on his arm she's surprised at how smooth it looks. The other one, the one the hospital gave them lay discarded in the trash and his new one is half built, a few wires and plates sticking out but also very flexible.

"That's amazing Arthur!" Vivi says because it is. Arthur was always great with machines.

He grins but it's a shadow of what it used to be.

.

She doesn't ask why Arthur squigs out at the color purple. Why alpacas and spicy food make him look so guilty and forlorn at the same time. She doesn't ask why Arthur insists he go first in every room or hallway even though his feet tremble and his eyes dart around like a tennis ball. She does not ask about Lewis or caves or about home.

She already knows Mystery and Arthur won't answer.

And it doesn't matter because Mystery has finally permitted Arthur to come near her again and Arthur laughed yesterday, a weak one but it's the thought that counts.

.

"I'm so sorry." Arthur says one day, just as she's opened the door, his eyes full of tears. There were no screams this night and so Mystery is asleep in the hotel bed, finally having gotten off of Arthur's case. He looks out of it. Bags under his eyes and his right hand holding onto his metal shoulder as if it was hurting, the white tee bunched under his grip.

"I killed him. I killed Lewis."

Her hands go to her head, something pulsing beneath her skull.

"I killed him. I killed him and I'm so sorry." He says his desperate words drowned only by her raging headache.

_Lewis. Lewis and her and Arthur in a cave._

He's sobbing now, his tears dropping down in rivulets. His words come out choked and he's pale. Like a ghost. He sobs for seconds that turn to minutes until he is a shaking mess, gripping at her, kneeling at her still body.

_Lewis falling falling falling down. Down in front of her. Down in front of a spike jutting from the ground with a sole purpose to impale._

"I'm so sorry." He does not say but mouths, his voice gone to him. He repeats it silently to her stomach meanwhile she stands stock still.

 _Blood. So much blood_.

When he is done, when Mystery awakes and pulls him back, licking at his tears and murmuring comforting words to him, Vivi finally moves.

"Arthur what's wrong?" She asks. She looks around the room, the door half-opened and the hallway lights shining into the dark room. She looks to the clock. 1:00 A.M.

"We should probably go to sleep." She says and then shifts into the bed, doing her nightly routine into getting comfortable. She falls asleep easily as Arthur leaves, closing the door behind him. Mystery does not curl to sleep next to her as he has the last few months but leaves her alone. She dreams of nothing as she does every night.

.

The mansion digs into her mind as she approaches. She feels something in her mind perk at the mansion which beats with some loud music. Arthur had stopped going forward but instead let Mystery lead, Arthur always walking step for step with Vivi but she could tell if it was really up to him he'd be hiding behind her like he used to.

She looks at the mansion. Towering dark purple, the windows shaking with the volume of the music that was playing from inside. A familiar song that she can't remember the origin of, a lullaby from times long past.

"Let's just get inside, borrow a phone and get out." Arthur says. She can tell the color scheme was making him sad.

"Fine." Vivi says even though she would very much like a tour of the place.

Before either of them could go for the handle, the door opens with a creak.

**Author's Note:**

> Literally all my fic are ooc now. Fuuuudge. Ah well, hope you liked this clusterfuck.


End file.
